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A retrospective of creative works (Part 2)
If you're just joining us, I've been going back through literally everything that I've ever created (that I can remember) in order to figure out where I've been creatively, and hoping that that can serve as a good enough guide going forward. I'm honestly thinking about making this maybe a video series instead of a journal series, although it's really hard to give good enough visuals to literary works. Last time I talked about a bizarre series about a girl who turned into a monster, onto a bizarre psychic twins story, comics about a pickle, and the unbalanced and awful Epic: The Humorous RPG. Today we're going to start with... Little Cassie (2012): You can read this one starting here: Little Cassie - Chapter 1 I consider this a full-on novel/novella. I'd like to consider it a novel, but it only goes to 40,000 words when (adult) novels usually have 50,000 minimum. Oh yeah, speaking of which, this is the first thing that I wrote "aimed at a adults." I use quotes because this wasn't aimed at anyone. I wrote this out of a place of deep disillusionment with life, the universe, and everything. The main plot of the book is that a man named Andrew Wright, another person in deep disillusionment has done nothing in his life. He has an average life, as he says so in the first paragraph. However, his neighbors are clearly and obviously abusing their daughter, and he... after a lot of deliberation... decides to do something about it. He at first calls child services. When they do nothing, he kidnaps the child - a five-year-old girl called Cassie - and just takes off without really thinking about it. He ends up driving on the wrong side of the highway in order to escape the police, run through a police barricade (with said child in the car) and ends up getting them lost in the woods after said car explodes. The morality of the story, I remember, was supposed to be intentionally murky. It was the Heavy Rain "how far would you go to save someone" kind of shtick. How much immorality would you go through to do something moral? I don't... really like this one in hindsight. I mean, up until like chapter 17, I was writing it to cope with hardships that had recently happened in my life. This novel was a long exercise in dealing with shit, I realize that. And while that can push you to do a lot of works... when you end up no longer dealing with the shit, that leaves what you've made in a limbo. After chapter 17, Little Cassie was left unfinished and I didn't have any real desire to finish it. But sometime later, after I got a fanbase, I posted it online, and people asked me to finish it. And ugh... there's a reason that this burned itself out. Chapter 19 is painfully awful and forced. I could ignore the POV change, but Mr. Galvin, the book's antagonist breaks his facade for no reason whatsoever. Right now it looks as if they're in the clear. The police think that Andrew is the guilty one. When Lucy, Andrew's boyfriend, goes to his old house, Mr. Galvin takes offense to this... for some reason... and tries to shoot her. Okay, he's apparently paranoid that Lucy is going to try and kidnap his kid again, but it's very weak and almost comes out of nowhere compared to everything else that Mr. Galvin has done. Then Cassie shoots Mr. Galvin, and eventually Mr. Galvin is angry enough to accidentally admit everything in rage in front of police officers because that's not forced or anything. Then the rest of the story is a courtroom thriller because... I don't know. I'd say it's a pretty cliche one and it doesn't really fit with the rest of the novel. I mean, it's plot relevant and thematically relevant, but it doesn't really go beyond that. It feels like another novel in a completely different genre was just tacked on because the author couldn't really be bothered to finish the first one, and who knows, that might have been the case. While this one has technically gotten the first draft done, I just want to forget that this one ever exists. It has served its purpose, and that revelation might actually be a key to figuring everything else out. Friendship is Magic Fanfictions (2013): I wrote... way too many of these goddamn things. We'll be going in no particular order. Keep in mind that at the time I was an MLP reviewer, and I was actually starting to get some popularity. I did manage to make it to I think 200 subscribers before I branched out, which was actually pretty big for me at the time. Well, except for the first one. The first one was basically a My Little Dashie ripoff, except in reverse (human goes to Equestria story), which was overdone and overplayed, even at the time. www.fimfiction.net/story/94839…. I haven't read this in years, and I have no intention of doing so. It might be fun to one day MSTK this, and apparently it's three chapter sequel that was on hiatus forever. Okay, so other than that, there was My Neighbor Pinkie Pie, which was apparently inspired by Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I'm not going into a lot of detail here because... I really don't wanna. I'd consider this the... awkward part in my creative past, and considering what we've already been through in this retrospective, that is saying something. The next thing is important though - Clean Up on Smile Five. www.fimfiction.net/story/10823… This was meant to be something that invoked the feeling of the show, and basically follow the format of the show to a tee. And as many people may or may not know, this is how I first met Nayolfa, as he decided to do a comic based on it. And regardless if this is good or bad - I feel that it is what it is - it is probably one of the most important things of what I've written, getting me to where I am now. That's either depressing or hilarious. Butterfly effects, you know? I wrote two more that were largely unimportant to anything. Number one was Dare to be Daring: www.fimfiction.net/story/10923…. In it, a director - Alfred Hitchcolt - sees that Rainbow Dash has a resemblance to Daring Do, and decides to make the first ever Daring Do movie with her as the star. This is apparently a plan to end up killing her by using real traps instead of set traps, or permanently injure her so she could never race again because of jealousy. And the final one was Tuesday: Tuesday. It's one of the more cohesive ones, I suppose. In it, Twilight hits Spike with a spell that makes him repeat the same day over and over again. The only thing that would make it special, I guess, is that it's one of the few things I've written that actually used one of my favorite plots - The Groundhog Day ''plot. I'll be honest, I don't remember much about what I did here in hindsight, or why. Why the fuck did I write so many of these? Is it because my popularity was rising? I remember writing ''Two Worlds before anyone really knew me, and that was the only one that had multiple chapters, so I don't know. On some level, this is probably one of the more important bricks, but I'd just like to move on. This wasn't the only series I did fanfiction from, by the way, and we'll get to that when we do. Growing Around (July 15th, 2014): I had no idea where to put this one. After all, it has been a continual part of my life for... every single part ever since July 15th, 2014. I mean, the first "real" final product that came out of it was the novel, in October of 2016, and I might talk about that in its own entry, but I think I'd like to talk about the "show" aspect of it first. It started one day when I was talking with Kyle/Nayolfa, sometime shortly after the Shorty McShorts' Shorts review, and I was like "hey Kyle, you can draw, and I can write. Let's make a cartoon." One thing this retrospective has taught me is that I was and am fucking insane. But honestly, this is one of those "insane" decisions that ends up benefiting you in the long road. It's because Kyle and I started this that we eventually met Meghan, who did the cover of the book, Nick/VoodooRaisins who has voiced for me several times and did the editing for "D.W.'s Very Bad Day"; Kimberly, who has also done a lot of voicing for me, and is going to be a big part of an upcoming review; Rachel/AnimatedBeing, who was my editor for a bit, Brycen/MongolianPangolin, who has done the title card for the Norm of the North review, and the animation in my Top 20 Worst Animated Themes. Embarking on this project has had nothing but an amazingly positive effect on my life - from helping me meet pretty much every single one of my current friends, and getting me to do things that I'd never imagine that I'd do before. And the idea itself really does hit me in a way I can't describe. I don't know why this has been able to hold my interest for so long. I think I've been interested in Metamorphosis for longer - about five years; eighth grade until my graduation from high school, but this is definitely going to last longer. I don't want to go into much detail about the project itself because... people know. It's something that I haven't shut up about for so long. The basic idea is that it's a world where kids rule. People age normally, but kids are the ones in charge. And immediately we decided we weren't going to do a dystopia thing. This wasn't going to be "Children of the Corn" and it made sense; at least to us. Cartoons have used quirkier concepts in the past, and this didn't (and doesn't) sound out of the ordinary for the medium. But that's a tale for another day. But to tell you the truth, I think that this might be the cornerstone clue. What has separated the projects I've been invested in and the ones that I haven't so far has had nothing to do with an internal fascination. It's been all about... the experiences surrounding them. Metamorphosis, for instance. I wrote six volumes, totaling at least 30k, maybe 40k words. Pickles - relatives enjoyed the comics. 4 volumes; and then other people's interest petered off, and mine followed. Growing Around allowed me to work with and get to know some awesome people, and while their interest has waxed and waned, I've been able to continue it to this day. I don't know what this means. Maybe it would be wise to go through every single episode to figure out my themes and motifs, but frankly that would take longer than I have time and I think distract from the ultimate point here. I'll just leave the list as basic as I can. Pilot - it's a parent-teacher conference over the parent's bad grade. Done purely to show off the premise of the show, but is bad at doing even that. This is terrible in every single way, and I've made much better versions of it. Silly Sally - I honestly... don't know much about what I wrote here. The mayor Talula gives a nickname for Sally, everyone thinks she's stupid and starts bullying her. To what end, I don't know. Movie Mayhem - a basic role reversal episode; probably practice with writing Robert. He tries to sneak into a "kids only movie." Quickdraw - a celebrity comes to town, and guess what - he's an asshole. I've gotten... better with time, is all I'm saying. Chore Wars - The house has fallen into disarray and it's up to Sally to clean it if she wants Timmy's super rare glow-in-the-dark yo-yo. This was practice to see if Sally could hold an episode. It's probably the first script I can roughly stand, although it meanders a lot. Baby Tooth - good idea; terrible execution. Timmy loses his last baby tooth and has a midlife crisis because of it. It was meant to be a deconstruction of the show's concept, a bit. But the actual script is awful. Detention Hoppers - Like Movie Mayhem, it's an idea that needs to be rewritten an expanded upon. Because the parents want to get out of obligations, they get detention on purpose. It's up to Sally and Timmy to break them out. Best Enemies - I just want to say, I wrote this before Gravity Falls revealed gave Pacific depth, and yes I am proud of that. Basically, this episode is "Talula is a dick to Sally because Sally destroys the town." Jump and Jam - I wanted to see if Sally could be an antagonist. So now she's got a song that annoys Linda to the point where she goes insane. I might need to rewrite this one a bit. Toy Tactics - I really do like the creativity of this one, but it would be almost impossible to produce. Sally and Timmy are playing with their toys and get the parents involved, except we see the world from the kids' imaginations. A Tale of Two Kiddies - I wanted to write a sad episode. It was scrapped because it was too sad. How I Spent My Summerway Vacation - one of the production staff's favorites. Just the story of how Robert and Linda first met. It's a little simplistic in hindsight, but with these last two, I can see my own progression here. Mind Games - This one is mostly okay, but it needs a rewrite. I like the twist "this isn't my dream, so it must be your dream." But I'm probably just biased because I like body swap stories and I just wanted to write one. Anthology of Insanity - "Hey Kyle, you know what would be funny? The Sally Parable." I still want to use each of the ideas here in the future (Linda Alone was kind of reused for It Girl already). But the execution is... meh at best. My Pretty Pony - This is one that I need to work out with the production staff. Right now the status of a pet in the family is very nebulous. And of course everyone complained because of the show I was into at the time. But... this plot fits strongly into the world of Growing Around. And I like the idea that Sally got the horse/pony as a gift, and not out of selfishness. Also, April and "May" make their first appearances here. Picture Day - If you want an example of the show fully idealized, this episode is it. It's a common plotline that's tipped on its head for awesome chaos and a lot of fun. It's Picture Day, and so the school staff kids have turned it into a game to get people as messy as possible. The only problem - it doesn't really involve the character I just added. Pest in Show - I made this episode to showcase the character I just added. It's alright. Nothing special though. Pinks and Blues - Released the same day as Pest in Show, this one came out a lot better. I don't have much to say about it though, as it doesn't really utilize the Growing Around universe... which yes, was a big problem with me and my writing for the longest time. Opposite Day - one of the biggest ideas I had was "how would the Growing Around characters react to our own world." I did pretty... well here, I guess. Two problems though. The "real world" showcased in Opposite Day isn't the "real world" and well... a single episode script isn't long enough to convey everything I'd want to from this concept. It deserves its own book, at least. Kathy's Impossible Box - a simple episode with nothing special about it. It's alright, and I think it was an exercise to get all of the characters into one episode. Easter - One of the bigger questions of the series is "what about grandparents?" And I don't think that I executed it well here. Everything else about the episode script I really do like; I just don't think it served its purpose. Also, I'd probably use a more fictional holiday, or at least "bunny day." GA kinda has a... "I don't really want to think about religion in this world" rule. My Sister, the Pet Sitter - This was me really trying to use the concept to its fullest potential. I like this one, even though it does borrow... a few ques from that Pickles comic I drew all the way back. The Winter of Summerway - I have no idea why this episode is titled the way it is. Other than the title, it's pretty minimal. Steve invents some new jelly drink, and the big evil business guy turns it into a big evil plan to... I don't even remember. Sally's Choice - what the fuck was I thinking here? This is one of the most melodramatic pieces of shit... it's not good, and everyone thinks it's not good. I wanted to give Sally a tough choice, and I went a little bit too far here. Scout's Honor - I can't say much more but, I like this one. The boy/girl scouts being the police in this world was a concept that everyone really seems to like, and it was fun to really explore it here. Float On - This one I really like, even though it probably needs a part 2 that it's never going to get. I wanted to try and do a new spin on the "supervisor doesn't do jack shit" plotlines, and when you do a job that gets finished early in the process and you don't have the ability to help later on, it is a very frustrating thing. I probably should have made Sally's conflict a lot more... outward though. It need a rewrite, I think. Attack of the Chameleon - Just a fun little episode that I really enjoy and really like. It's up there with Picture Day in a "this is what the concept is" kind of way. ***** Then the book and about a year of nothing happened Lind and the Maturity Medicine - Here's the thing with this episode. I like, actually love, what it is. However, it's probably going to run hardest into being a victim of "things of the concept have to change." Like, I've added in Damien and he would be a great part of this episode. Sally and Delilah - I've wanted, for years, to do a story of an imaginary friend, from the friend's point of view, and... I don't think I encapsulated it very perfectly. A lot of this story is sad for the sake of being sad and there is too much filler, and it seems really "cutesy" at times. However, I really do enjoy the beginning and the ending. But the middle really needs to be reconstructed. Pilot Version 2 - I like it, but talking with the team, we've got to make a lot of changes, so this probably won't be it. For one thing, it still doesn't include enough Timmy, who will be renamed into Max. Pixelgotchi - One thing that separates the post-novel scripts from the pre-novel scripts that the former tend to be... a lot darker. However, the kind of character that Shane is really lends the episodes to becoming darker (Opposite Day was the darkest pre-book episode). I think that this one might be a little bit too intense - it's essentially a tomagotchi pet forming parasitic relationships with kids in an attempt to take them out of the picture and control the world, which really makes Shane one of the most serious villains that I've written. Tales of Childhood Past - It's kind of hard to really speak on this one because so much of Growing Around's history is not set in stone. Anything about this episode is subject to change. It Girl: Part 1 - So, I wanted to rewrite "Linda Alone" from Sally's perspective because of her fears of being on her own. And the team staff wanted to really start utilizing the concept, making things more chaotic. And so... a game of tag turns a city into a post-apocalypse shit hole. I do really like this one. It's one of the best, and it's a good note to end this on. Why did I write so many of these? Why have I been so fascinated by this world and these characters? That's a question that I can't really answer, try as I might. The only clue that I seem to have is that the biggest indicator of what I've been able to finish... seems to be determined by the events surrounding it, and not the thing itself. Well, that's with the exception of the next thing - the spanner in the works. 'Hellspawn (May 21st, 2015): '''Hellspawn - Pilot This one is weird. Not because the story or the writing is weird, but the... reaction and effect. This is one of the few things that people ''really liked that I've never had the desire to continue on, and the baffles me. It goes against every piece of evidence that I have. Hellspawn is about a teenage girl named Jessica (another weird thing; I rarely write teenagers) who has a shadow parasite demon that basically kills anything that tries to hurt Jessica, but its own warped definition of "hurt" (i.e., trying to get the shadow demon out). Along the way, there's this private investigator who is working with people trying to stop and contain these demons, but it's revealed that he's not really a part of them, and is actually trying to stop the people trying to contain the demons, because apparently they want to contain the problem, the feelings and consideration of the people be damned. It's definitely some of the more interesting themes that I've come across. I think that this is one of the better unfinished things that I've written, and it's a series that looks like it has a lot of potential for lore and characters. People were interested in it. It wasn't the most unique thing in the world, but it had tone and atmosphere and the characters and concepts were interesting. But... try as I might, I could never continue it. The pilot starts right out of the gate. A teenage girl is crying over her mother's recent corpse. Her shadow begins talking to her, claiming that "it had to be done." They've recently escaped from "the institution". The father comes home, and then Jessica gets out of dodge before the shadow decides it wants to kill her too. We learn that it has always been killing people who wanted to hurt Jessica and won't let her do anything to hurt herself. She tries to jump off of an underpass bridge into a river, but the thing won't let her. She tries to starve herself, but the weaker Jessica gets, the more influence that the shadow has. It eventually possesses her enough to eat someone's dog as punishment for trying to starve herself. I've noticed something weird - either what I write is happy and upbeat or it's the darkest, most depressing thing ever. That's a weird schism. Maybe because I don't like the latter very much is why this never went anywhere in my mind. Then again, Metamorphosis was inspired by Goosebumps and it was pretty dark. There was the aforementioned "bounty hunter trying to kill naughty children" and "town turned into a post-apocalypse by a game of tag" that got actually very serious, with families separated and everything. Actually writing gore doesn't seem to bother me, despite the complaints I've made of gory shows. Demons and dark monsters, like say, the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who, are infinitely fascinating to me. This one confuses me the most. Maybe I just... don't want to write adult? Then again, that doesn't make much sense. When it came to the others, it was never much about what I wanted. I wrote... what other people liked and I stopped with what other people ignored. The only exceptions were this, and well... Epic! The Humorous RPG. I dunno. I can't explain this. Can anyone else? Maybe the answer will start next time, when we pick up with Young Commando, and then things will start getting depressing fast. Category:Miscellaneous